US Supreme Court’s Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc.. v. Goldsmith et al sheds light on different perspectives of copyright law in common law and civil law countries. This brief post dives into this duality, as exampled by American and Brazilian law. Lynn Goldsmith, an esteemed American photographer, captured a significant moment in…

This contribution is based on a paper published in 44 European Intellectual Property Law Review 595 (2022)   Photographs are included in Article 2(1) of the Berne Convention as copyrightable artistic works. All Berne Union Member States must thus provide copyright protection to photographic works. As is known, originality has always been the essential requirement…

Although the legal consequences of infringement of different IP rights (e.g. copyright, trademarks and patents) are in principle identically regulated in Austria by the corresponding laws, the requirements for protection and acts of exploitation reserved to the proprietor, which are adapted to the market conditions, are fundamentally different depending on the type of IP right….

The Austrian Supreme Court has recently shed some light on the requirements for the admissible quotation of photos (judgment of 26 September 2017, 4Ob81/17s). In this case, a photographer had taken photos of a poacher who was killed in 1982. The competent collecting society sued a private TV-broadcasting station for their unauthorised use of one…

A full summary of this case has been published on Kluwer IP Law The Supreme Court held that even in cases where many photographs are involved, the courts must carry out a separate examination of each individual photograph in order to assess their respective originality, if necessary by grouping them by common characteristics. To make…

On 21 May 2015, the IP specialist chamber of the High Court of First Instance of Paris handed down one of its worst rulings in copyright law: in breach of the most basic EU and French copyright law rules, it refused copyright protection to a famous photograph of Jimi Hendrix (reproduced above), taken by Gered…

A full summary of this case has been published on Kluwer IP Law The Supreme Court provided guidance on how to assess whether a work should be considered to be an adaptation, within the meaning of Section 4, paragraph 1 of the Swedish Copyright Act, or a new and independent work within the meaning of…

In the past few months, the press exception has been at the centre of attention in court proceedings in Serbia. The Appeal Court has concluded that a photograph, protected by copyright, taken a few minutes after a car accident where seven people were injured was an integral part of the current event about which the…

The Latvian Supreme Court has recently ruled on the determination of pecuniary and non-pecuniary damages for copyright infringement in a case where the copyright works had been used for informatory purposes. Case No. SKC-[B]/2016 was adjudicated in a closed hearing, as a result of which the number of the case file and the date of…

The court of appeals confirmed that there had been infringement of copyright in the claimant’s photographs, and in doing so, clarified the requirements for the protection of photos as copyright works.  The court provided guidance regarding lump sum compensation as an alternative to compensation by way of direct damages. A full summary of this case…